Swapping homework for comics? Why that’s a Dandy idea!
FOR their parents’ generation, the chance to swap a pile of homework for a stack of Beanos or Dandys was the stuff of daydreams.
But now pupils at one Scottish primary have been allowed to do exactly that – after successfully voting to scrap the time-honoured tradition.
The 193 children at Inverlochy Primary School in Fort William will now no longer be asked to complete reading, spelling or maths exercises at home.
Instead, they will be encouraged to read comics, books and magazines in their own time.
Some 62 per cent of parents voted in favour of getting rid of homework, along with 79 per cent of pupils. Teachers were split, with half against homework and half in favour.
Barry Hutchison, 38, whose daughter Mia is in P3 at Inverlochy, said: ‘Homework stresses the kids and the parents out. Kids have so many things outside school, like clubs. They just need time to be kids.
‘There might be some parents who were very firmly in favour of keeping homework but all the parents I’ve spoken to wanted to get rid of it.’
Susan Campbell, 30, also voted for the ban. She said she will read with her eight-year-old son Kadyn instead, adding: ‘It takes up a lot of time. Quite often Kadyn has afterschool clubs and things and it can be left until 8pm at night. He should be going to bed but instead we’re sitting doing homework with him. He’s really not that responsive at that time of night.’
Six-year-old Levi Jones said: ‘I wanted to keep homework.’
But his mother Leona, 34, supported it being scrapped. She said: ‘For the amount of after-school activities they have, it can be difficult to fit it in, especially when you’re a working parent. I don’t mind doing a bit, we’re still doing reading and I totally agree with that, but it’s for pleasure, not work.’
Parents who voted to keep homework believed it was important for educational development.
Emma Rodger, 33, mother of James, five, said: ‘A bit of reading and sums for P1 are really important. When James was learning the sums at home it brought him on a lot. He wanted it to stay as well. He liked doing it.’
A spokesman for the EIS teaching union said: ‘Ultimately, it is for schools and teachers to determine, based on teachers’ professional judgement and knowledge of their own pupils’ learning needs, how best to structure the delivery of all aspects of the curriculum.’
Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘It is a betrayal of children. There is a crisis in Scotland in education. You’re not going to solve it by having less homework. If you can ditch homework, you wonder what is going on at the grassroots.
‘I’m afraid it is dewy-eyed optimism to think that somehow abolishing homework is going to help children. It is not going to help children. It is going to rob them of their prospects. It is going to rob them of their future.’